Over the last three weeks we’ve taken a look at the issue which Peter addresses in 2Peter 3:4. And it revolves around the question the mockers of Peter’s day have raised: "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."

The reason Peter brings this up is because of it’s centrality to our redemption and the faithfulness of our God to make good on His promise that He will return in the same way the disciples saw Him ascend into heaven in the first chapter of Acts.

The mockers of Peter’s day, and our day as well, have essentially called into question the integrity of our Almighty God, Creator and Savior. And Peter is trying to help us understand that no matter what the world would do to try and shake our faith, together with the hope we have in Christ, there is no mere mortal or any other heavenly entity who will stand in the way of our God’s plan to redeem us and take us home to be with Him.

Over the past three weeks, we’ve seen clearly how both the OT and NT have revealed God’s teaching on Christ’s Second Coming.

We’ve seen that Scriptures warn us that the last days will be filled with false teachers who mock God and His promised coming. They filled Peter’s day and they fill ours.

We’ve also seen that there are two separate events concerning the 2nd coming of Christ and that this fact should not confuse us. Scripture is not contradicting itself when it says there will be no out of the ordinary signs that will issue it in, while also saying there will be all sorts of signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth that all the world will see and experience at His coming, because it is speaking of 2 distinct events associated with the Second coming.

Christ will come in the air for His own. This is an imminent return with no warning or special signs. But, Christ will come back to this earth with His saints. This event will be preceded by signs that all the earth will see and experience.

Christ’s secret coming for His own is known as the rapture of the Church, which is a snatching away of Christ’s bride from this earth where we receive our glorified bodies and are forever with the Lord.

1CO 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed -
52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed."

It’s clear that the Lord is coming for us to do something to us, namely, to change us in such a way that in the twinkling of an eye we "will be raised imperishable." In other words, we will receive our glorified bodies. This will be our resurrection. Paul talks about this in 1Thessalonians.

1TH 4:15 "According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."

Our glorified bodies will be like our Lord’s which is made clear in PHI 3:20 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

This morning we are going to begin to look at the final aspect of the 2nd coming, that of Christ coming with His saints to earth. At that time, the church will have their glorified bodies, their rewards, and will have a role to play in Christ’s 1000 year reign.

Next week we’ll touch on some of the things we find in the book of Revelation which has to do with the 7 year tribulation and some of the people involved, such as the antichrist, the beast, the two witnesses, and the angels in heaven who play a role in bringing, not only the plagues, but the good news, Christ’s gospel, as well.

My objective today, is to establish the need for Christ’s 2nd return to earth, but also the reason for this coming, which is in large part to fulfill all of His promises to Israel as well as to us.

When Christ returns physically to this earth with His glorified saints, we’re told in the book of Zechariah that it is in order to rescue Israel. This will be at Armageddon.

ZEC 14:3 "Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle.
4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south."

REV 16:16 "Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
17:14 They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings - and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers."

That will be you and me in our glorified state as we return to this earth following our King who rescues Israel from total annihilation. This is the second coming of Christ we are talking about this morning.

And the reason for the second coming is also found in the passages we’ve just looked at. There is often a distinction made between promises which were specifically given to Israel in the O.T., and promises given to the Church in the N.T. times.

When we look at the covenant God made with Israel it involved a variety of things, not the least of which is the promise that they would have the penalty of their sins forgiven as a result of the perfect sacrifice being slain on their behalf, the lamb of God, Jesus Christ. And this is what we see from the prophet Isaiah.

ISA 53:2 "He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth."

By the way, this was written about 700 years before time of Jesus Christ. And this is the Messiah the Jews missed the first time. This is the Messiah we have come to know as we have embraced this Savior Jesus, the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sin of the world.

But in their rejection of the Messiah, the nation of Israel, though cut off as a nation from the Lord, are certainly not cut off from the promises given to them by God in the O.T. Scriptures.

Israel was essential in God’s plan for the Messiah who was born a Jew, and for our salvation through Him . The covenants which God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, together with David and others, were meant to be eternal in nature. We see this with Abraham.

GEN 17:7 "I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

But this promise was never revoked by God concerning Israel. In fact, when Israel had rebelled against God they suffered the consequences of their rebellion and were taken captive and led out of Israel by both Assyria and Babylon.

Isaiah had warned of this in the early 700’s B.C. when he was commissioned by God to declare to Israel that Assyria and Babylon would be used of God to bring judgment on Israel and Judah.

ISA 1:2 Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand."
4 Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.

ISA 3:1 "See now, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: all supplies of food and all supplies of water,
2 the hero and warrior, the judge and prophet, the soothsayer and elder,
3 the captain of fifty and man of rank, the counselor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.
4 I will make boys their officials; mere children will govern them."

And yet, it is this same Isaiah who is told by God that this same obstinate people called Israel will be around at the very end and the Lord will not forsake them.

ISA 2:2 "In the last days the mountain of the LORD'S temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem."

God will not forsake Israel according to Isaiah who tells Israel in ISA 43:5 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.
6 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth -
7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."
8 Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf."

God brought back Israel to the land in 1948, but they’re still deaf. They have not come to the Messiah to find salvation and yet God still has every intention of bringing them back to Himself for His own sake and the covenants He made with His people.

ISA 45:4 "For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.
5 I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other."

The Lord made a promise to Abraham and to his descendants and God has every intention of bringing Israel back to Himself where they will embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior and are reunited as an estranged wife is to her husband.

ISA 54:5 "For your Maker is your husband - the LORD Almighty is his name - the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.
6 The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit - a wife who married young, only to be rejected," says your God.
7 "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back."

This is an everlasting love our Lord has for Israel, not because they are so special in and of themselves, but because God has chosen them and has loved them and has covenanted with them to be their God and they will be His people. It is God who will turn their hearts and bring them back and graft them back into His life.

This is what Paul spoke of when writing to the church in Rome. He made it clear that there were two aspects of what it meant to be part of Israel. There is a sense in which every believer in Christ is part of a spiritual Israel.

ROM 9:6 "It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." (Gen. 21:12)
8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring."

In this sense, we have the same promise given to us that was given to Abraham and are therefore his offspring in a spiritual sense because we, like Abraham, believed God and it was reckoned to us as righteousness. Our righteousness comes from God, it comes from Christ, not ourselves, and it was the same with Abraham.

And yet, despite that, Paul goes on to explain that though both Jew and Gentile may be part of a spiritual Israel, [and by the way, the name Israel means "governed by God", and so, every believer in Christ ought to be governed by God who is Lord and Savior]; yet this does not discount the fact that the remnant God calls out of the actual physical descendants of Abraham will be ultimately rejected.

ROM 10:21 "But concerning Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people." (Isaiah 65:2)
11:1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew."

Paul is clearly speaking of those people known as Israel. The same Israel who inhabits the land today, the same Israel who identify themselves with the O.T. Scriptures and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and yet do not follow the God of the Bible as they, as a nation, continue to reject their Messiah, Jesus.

Again, Paul asks the question: "Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!" (ROM 11:11-12)

And as if to drive the point home Paul then sums up what God has revealed concerning Israel.

ROM 11:25 "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins."

Now, all of this does not mean that God has two plans of salvation: one for the Gentiles and one for Israel.

ACT 4:12 "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

And yet, it was Israel who was chosen by God so that through them we might have this Messiah who was sent for the whole world. The beauty of God not forsaking Israel, and actually restoring her in the land under the headship of Christ one day, shows how faithful God is to His promises despite the sinfulness of Israel.

It demonstrates the grace and mercy of God even to the Gentile world who also deserved nothing from God and yet has been shown mercy despite our own rejection of the Messiah. This isn’t about Israel versus the Church. It’s about a God who loves us all and sent His only begotten Son into this world to die for us all.

It just so happens that in God’s scheme of things He made promises to the nation of Israel which were never meant to be revoked and in His faithfulness He is going to come back and make good on those promises and actually be the King of Israel in the most real sense, as they submit to Jesus Christ, and love and serve Him.

This is what the second of Christ is all about. It is Jesus Christ coming back to this physical world to set up His kingdom in Jerusalem to rule, not only over His chosen people Israel, who will at that time embrace Him by faith, but to rule over the whole world as well.

He will come back in His physical, glorified body to rule and reign in the earth. There has never been anything like it after the fall of man. This is going to be a unique event which we’re told will last a thousand years.

When Jesus Christ comes back He will not be coming back to a lot of fanfare where everyone in the world will be excited about His coming. The world-at-large will not be wanting to crown Him King of kings and Lord of lords. They will not be waving palm branches and singing Hosanna to God in the highest, like they did on the day He rode into Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago.

No, they will fear and dread His coming because He will not be coming as a humble servant riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, but as a Conqueror and Judge who will ride in on a white horse.

REV 19:11 "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.
12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.
13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." (Psalm 2:9) He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."

There will be war going on when Christ returns. In fact, this is the war we hear so much about. It’s called the "Battle of Armageddon" where the kings of the earth wage war with Israel.

REV 16:16 "Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!"
18 Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.
19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath."

This battle will be like no other. The kings of the earth will all but destroy Israel. In fact, the anti-christ will turn against Israel after having made a covenant with them 3 1/2 years earlier. For the last 3 1/2 years he will come against Israel.

REV 11:1 "I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, "Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there.
2 But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months."

42 months is exactly 3 1/2 years, which is half of 7, the number of years prophesied by the prophet Daniel. This is that time we know of as the 7 year tribulation.

Next week we’ll look at the events of the 7 year period known as the tribulation or Time of Jacob’s trouble; the time which occurs between Christ coming in the air for His own, the rapture, and His coming to the earth with His saints; His physical return to earth.

We’ll also take a look at what Christ does with the nations when He comes back and we’ll also look at the millennial reign of Christ and what our role will be during that time. We’ll check out what happens at the end of that thousand years and Satan’s short release. And, we’ll talk of the future for both believers as well as unbelievers.

These are exciting times we live in, and very comforting times as well. Today, we live in an age where a blessed hope is offered to those who believe the gospel. Those who are in relationship to Christ by faith will not taste death if He comes back today. We will be raptured out of this world to be with our Lord forever. And we will then come back with Him to rule and reign on this earth. We really do have good news to offer the world.

His second coming is sure. And we have the obligation to tell the world that this is not a game or a joke. There are serious eternal consequences for rejecting the Messiah who is God and Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We have the good news and we have the truth that all who come to Him by faith will be saved.

Praise God that our futures are secure and praise God that He will never abandon us, nor forsake us. This world is not our home as we’ll next week. We may inhabit it for an additional 1,000 years after Christ’s return but we also have the promise that even this world will be destroyed by fire and we will enter into new heavens and a new earth.

2PE 3:7 "By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives
12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him."

Are you looking forward to this? Then "make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him." Let your life glorify Him today as we look forward to glorifying Him forever in His presence.